


Not Just the Stars in the Sky

by clunion68



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Also as always, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comfort, Dadko, Eventual Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Fire Nation Royal Family, Firebending & Firebenders, Fluff, Gen, I WEEP, Implied Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Light Angst, Loneliness, Momtara, Other, Parenthood, Siblings, Southern Lights, Southern Water Tribe, Zuko (Avatar) is a Good Parent, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, about stars and lonliness and feeling a little less alone, and also children learning things from their parents that are good actually, and kind of a sad turtle duck, and then it's not implied, as always, i just... have many a feeling, i lub dis fambly, there it is, until they're totally married with 4 kids lmao, zuko's kids are good kids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29693571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clunion68/pseuds/clunion68
Summary: A lovely little triptych: three times in which Zuko and later his daughters take comfort in the stars.____________________Izumi looked up towards the stars as if something was already peaking its way through, as if the answers were somehow to be deciphered up there.“Do you remember,” Kya remarked now too looking up at the stars, “that thing Dad used to do when we were sad?”
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	1. Part I: The Boy King

The stone hit the water with a soft splash. It was just about the only thing to break the silence of the stagnant night air. The young Fire Lord sat in the garden wondering how many stones now lay at the bottom of the pond. He wondered if it would anger the royal groundskeepers. He doubted they would notice a few little stones missing.

_Splash!_

He heard the rustling of feathers and soft quacks. A poor little turtleduck had made its way into the water only to be frightened by a stone that seemed to fall straight out of the sky.

Zuko sighed as he let himself fall backward. He tucked one hand underneath his head, his crown, the other he placed gently underneath his ribcage floating on his breath. The sky was clear; the dry open winter nights in the Fire Nation guaranteed it. It was incredible really, he felt he could have been anywhere besides the palace gardens. He could have been lying out on the deck of an old runt of a navy ship. He could have been lying on the roof of an aging apartment building in Ba Sing Se. He could have been up on the back of a sky bison, closer to the heavens than he had ever been before, gliding underneath the gentle watch of the moon.

The stars actually were different where she had grown up, that’s what Katara had told him. In the Southern Hemisphere, the sky held different constellations. Different dead warriors and mythical beings. Different spirits. It was alright if he couldn’t tell the difference at first. What was he going to do, she laughed, sit out all night if he were to visit? He had reminded her that he was impervious to the cold; he had perfected the technique his uncle had taught him to stay warm in freezing temperatures. This had made her laugh harder. She had wagered he’d be begging for the thickest furs she could find in about half an hour. She had a lovely smile. Even when she was teasing him. Especially when she was teasing him. He missed her smile. He missed the smiles of all his friends, didn’t he? He felt he missed hers most of all.

He was due in just under a month for an official visit to the Southern Water Tribe. Talk of reparations had been in the works, as had a diplomatic mission to the South Pole for negotiations with Chief Hakoda and his people whose importance could not be overemphasized. It was the kind of trip that required a well-rested Fire Lord. It was the kind of trip in which he would be thoroughly advised not to spend all night out in the cold trying to map the stars. Still, if he couldn’t use his immense royal power to clear a few hours in his schedule for the sake of friendship, what could he use it for?

He could feel his heart beating faster with the swell of his breath. Something of a smile crept up his mouth at the thought of seeing his friends again. He supposed he saw Aang quite often; no world summit was complete without the Avatar. Sokka he hadn’t seen for months. He had left a few days after the coronation, had gone home to help his father rebuild – something that would no doubt prepare him well to be chief someday. And Katara, well, he couldn’t come up with any new quasi-medical reasons for her to stay and continue healing him. Thanks to her weeks of diligent patience, he had recovered at least enough to be put under the watchful eyes of the royal physicians and begin full Fire Lord duties. So after their brief moment in time together, Katara was continuing to do exactly what she did best. Katara had continued to split her time between home and the rest of the world, helping whoever she could sustain hope while she healed wounds.

He swallowed and felt his hand twitch at the thought of the girl who had done the very same for him. His stomach flipped as a thought entered his mind, the thought that maybe, perhaps, a little, he wouldn’t mind her touching him again for reasons other than, you know, trying to keep him from dying. He tried to shake the thoughts off like a fly in his ear. He tried to swat away the thoughts of how their arms would feel wrapped around each other for hours, all night even, especially if they were somewhere known for being particularly and uniquely freezing. He tried to concentrate on the stars, on mapping the constellations of his home skies, instead of imagining what her laugh would sound like after a kiss. He tried to exhale the thoughts of her having stayed, not just at his bedside.

Faint footsteps from the adjacent passageway startled him out of his dreaming.

“Uncle?”

He sat up turning around, heart racing.

His shoulders dropped as he realized it was merely a pair of passing palace guards.

“Evening sir!” they called out in their flat disciplined tone.

Zuko rubbed his eye with one hand and waved with the other.

“H..hi,” he sighed, “good evening.”

He wasn’t even sure they heard him. By the time the words stumbled out of his mouth they already had their backs to him. He supposed as long as they saw that he was still alive and breathing their jobs were done. He rolled his eyes back up to the sky. For a moment, he thought maybe he would have a conversation that wasn’t about work. Maybe he would have heard about their days, their children, their friends. Maybe he would have told them a funny anecdote from his travels. He could call them back, he realized; he could have them at his side making small talk in an instant by royal decree. And what good would that do? Was he really going to call them over and have them look up at the stars with him, skip stones on the pond with him, these grown men who cared for his life only because it was their job? He let them go, or rather, they had already walked away towards some other empty palace hall. Zuko made his peace with the fact that to them he was nothing more than the crown on his head.

On the matter of his uncle, the old man would be sleeping soundly if Zuko knew anything of his habits. And he knew, if he was being honest, far too many of his uncle’s habits. He could wake him up if he wanted to. Well, not so much wake him up but sit silently at the foot of his bed until he awoke. He could sit there for a while and twiddle his thumbs, but it was better perhaps to wait until morning. Besides, it really wasn’t an emergency. He was young but not so young, and the ruler of a sovereign nation; he could wait to express his feelings over morning tea. He would let the poor man rest. He smirked to himself though knowing that his bout of loneliness would constitute a bona fide emergency in his uncle’s mind. And perhaps, he hoped, by the time he too had slept, the feelings would have passed.

He let himself drop, gently rolling his spine to the ground. He turned his head to the right for a moment saw Katara looking back, smiling. He turned away, closing his eyes and taking in a deep breath.

_Did you really think she’d stay forever?_

He turned his head to the left, towards the large black pine at the edge of the pond. He turned his head towards the large black pine at the edge of the pond where he used to sit under its shade in his mother’s lap. The trunk of the tree curved perfectly to fit the frame of a mother and child. He saw traces of her everywhere, even with all that had changed. And this silhouette in the tree was still the clearest one, always would be.

Some days he felt his mother’s face was fading a little, morphing, as each memory became a memory of a memory. He felt a tear trailing down his cheek. A shooting star.

“I miss you,” he whispered as he turned his gaze upwards once more, “I… is that dumb?”

At that point, he didn’t even really know who he was talking to. 

The stars blinked quietly at the boy lying still, save the gentle rise and fall of his chest. There was nothing much they could do except blink at the boy failing to blink back tears. It all welled up in him, right up to his throat. And then he let it dissipate; let them all fall like meteorites. There was little he could do but breathe and let the moment pass. It was temporary he hoped, the feeling that he would always be churning memories into ghosts. That he would fashion them from his mind like puppets or statues and place them underneath the tree, or across the table, or at his side in that absolute cavern of a throne room, or wrapped around his side on sheets of silk.

“Well,” he tried to pick one star to look at but there were far too many, “at least you’re always around.”

He sat up wiping his nose on his sleeve and making a mental note to add this robe to the stash of laundry he kept hidden from his laundress, the things he figured he could just wash himself. It was growing and sooner or later he’d either have to actually get it done or turn over his pile in shame.

He looked around the garden, its dim lanterns giving just enough light to illuminate the paths. He looked back up at the stars, how they all had their perfect place, how they all remained fixed and gazing back. With a slight flick of his wrist, he extinguished the flames in the lanterns. How much clearer they were now with no other light than that of the moon and the faint glow from the surrounding palace. There were millions of them and they had both died long before him and would outlive him. It all paled against the infinite backdrop. He suddenly felt small.

His eyes strayed from the sky to his open palm. It was as if he was hoping to catch one like a raindrop or a snowflake. Someone had once said something about wishes and stars, and he wished very much for something to hold on to. Once he might have hurled flames into the open until he exhausted himself, he might have thrown all his frustration and sadness into raging bursts aimed at nothing and no one but his own uncertainty. He still wouldn’t put it past himself, but he didn’t want to rage, he didn’t want to fight. There was nothing to fight. There were just feelings that would sooner or later pass.

But he wanted something. Something brewing inside of him was yearning to be set free. Something warm and bright and familiar was swirling itself into a tight spark and hurdling through his bones. It burned bright. It burned silently. He clasped his palm shut and when he opened it again it appeared. The smallest flame he had perhaps ever seen, but bright, bright as day, and hot; a little pearl blinking white, a faint shade of blue flickering at its center.

He exhaled a stunned laugh as he slowly rolled this miniature ball of fire around in his palm. Trying to prevent it from growing larger, he let it traverse his fingertips, let it bounce from one to the next. He twirled it around his hand as he reached up into the air as if this thing in his hand was guiding him towards something it found familiar. Not one constellation rearranged, not one celestial body out of place, and yet there, floating in the palm of his hand, was a star.

_Wait until Katara sees this!_

Looking at his own little star, thinking now of the look he hoped to find on her face, he took a breath and smiled. The moment would pass. The stars would fade with the rising of the sun. And when he needed to carry something small and bright and bigger than him all at once, he would hold his own stars – feel their warmth and be comforted by their constancy. He would hold them, he would feel them, he would breathe, and he would let them go.

With a deep inhale and a faint smile, he once more held his hand up to the night and watched his star fade into the others, dissipate like mist into the infinite.


	2. Part II: The Father

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Highly recommend putting on some sort of ocean waves background noise for this one! Let's get immersive babee!

Balancing the bowl of moon peaches in one hand and grasping the bottle of plum wine in the other, Zuko hastened down the darkened hallway. After a long – lovely, but long – day out on the shore, he and Katara finally had a moment of quiet to themselves. The children, tonight without much of the usual struggle, had fallen asleep rather quickly to one of their mother’s stories and the sound and phantom sensation of the waves. They had done well exhausting their children. They had done well exhausting themselves.

A grin spread across his face as he replayed the way Katara played with their children by playing with the sea itself, how the sun glinted off her skin and the water and seemed to wink at him, telling him he’d really done quite well for himself. Laughter echoed in his ears along with the cries of seagulls. There was a small, chipped seashell sitting on his nightstand, a special gift from Lu Ten and Kya who, despite having grown up amongst silver and gold, swore they had never seen anything more beautiful in their whole, admittedly short, lives. And there, in bed, was his wife, skin still warm and radiating from the sun, soaking in the gentle light of the moon and waiting for his company. Zuko could practically feel the floor sparking beneath him as he quickened his pace back towards their bedroom. Nearly losing his balance on the fruit bowl, he doubled back. He didn’t recall leaving the porch door open. He turned his head back towards the kitchen and then towards the end of the hall.

“Katara?” he whispered poking his head out onto the porch.

He felt his heart sink and his face flush as he noticed the little figure sitting on the porch stoop slumped over with her chin buried in her hands and staring out at the tide bringing the moonlight to shore. If she had noticed her father’s presence, she made no indication whatsoever.

“Oh… uh… Kya,” the wine suddenly felt heavy in his hand, “You’re not asleep?”

He waited for her to respond. Shake her head no. Or give a sardonic little “yes Daddy I’m sound asleep”. He got nothing but the sound of the waves endlessly breaking on the shore.

He sighed softly and set down the jug of wine and the bowl. Katara, if she didn’t find them first, would understand the delay. He snagged a peach from the bowl, just in case, and went to join his daughter.

He should have guessed. She had, of late, been going through a sleepless phase. Or, well, they hoped it was a phase. At first, it had been things like bad dreams or storms, tummy aches, or feeling feverish. Now there seemed to be no discernable reason at all. He would have to bring it up with his wife, and they would have to bring it up with the royal physicians. He had his fair share of sleepless nights too, though not when he was this young, and no one really gave it a second thought. So it wasn’t surprising. Every time Kya so much as protested an allegedly unjust bedtime because the night before they had gone to sleep half an hour later or sat trying to help her little brother and sister read or, with most futility, firebend, Katara teased Zuko about how much Kya was truly becoming her father’s daughter.

They had of course noticed other things too. How on the one hand her laugh rang clearer than anyone’s, her eyes shone brighter, and how on the other hand her cries stung red and drew from wells seemingly too deep for a child so young. He knew. He knew more than anyone the feeling of burning with brilliant light and bitter pain and not knowing what to do with it all. She looked small. It wasn’t strange for a little girl to look small. But something about the size of the porch and the way it opened up to the expanse of sea and sky, moon and stars, and her balled up frame all the in middle of it made her nearly disappear. He wondered looking down at the peach in his hand, how many times his mother had found him just the same.

“It’s pretty late,” he began as he lowered himself onto the stoop, “you’re not tired?”

Kya simply sniffled.

“Well,” he rolled the peach in his hands as he took in the view, “it’s a nice spot to sit and have a think anyway... if you’re, you know, not really so tired.”

Zuko watched his daughter watch the sea and felt the peach slowly warming in his hand. He gripped it tighter as he turned his face to the horizon, his eyes tracing the trail of moonlight upon the water. There was, he had come to admit many years ago, something mystical about Ember Island, especially at night. By day it was nowhere more than some hot tropical spot for the well-to-do to sport around and temporarily divest themselves of responsibility. Somehow though when the lights went out in the lavish houses and the stars came out nothing seemed to matter except the endless pull of the moon on the tide and the silent silhouettes of the cliffs falling into black sand. When the lights went out, there was nothing but stars in the sky, the endless rush of the sea towards the shore, and the feeling that whoever you were in the daytime, whatever your title was, could disappear over the dark line of the horizon.

“Between you and me, it’s the best view on the island,” he glanced at Kya, “but don’t tell anyone. I don’t wanna have to start hosting official… events and whatnot here either.”

She turned away from her father.

“Kya…” Zuko sighed.

Just a few hours earlier she had run into the water as the sun was setting trying to catch, as she called it, the fire on the waves. She had run into the water girlish cackles crackling like the first sparks of a bonfire, tossing flames to the sun to bid it farewell. She had turned back to her father and mother beaming; even as the sun was taking its leave she was still able to wield it in her little hands. She called out and waved and her parents waved back as the sun sank lower and lower to melt into the sea and give way to oncoming night.

“Go away.”

Just a few hours earlier she was smiling, and he would give anything to have her smiling again now.

“I’m not sleepy.”

Kya tucked her knees in and lowered her head.

“No, no,” he looked up at the stars, “I would never accuse you of such things.”

He looked down to the peach still in his hands and then to her.

“Princess Kya being sleepy,” he raised an eyebrow, “that’s… that’s like … Uncle Iroh hating tea. Or… Uncle Sokka hating meat… or well… or Uncle Aang _liking_ meat… or your dad knowing the latest dance moves.”

He did a stilted little shimmy that looked more like a disjointed shrug than a proper dance, suffice to say the youth of the Fire Nation wouldn’t be trying it any time soon. He stopped and searched for the slightest hint of a smile on his daughter’s face.

Kya knew he was trying to get her to smile. She lowered her head; in case she smiled against her will she did not want him to see.

“Yeah,” he dropped his shoulders, “I didn’t like that either.”

Zuko tried to find her gaze and gave her a small smile. He felt his face fall when she refused and turned his eyes back to the sky.

“Peach?”

He didn’t quite know what to do, only that he didn’t want to leave her alone.

Finally, she looked at him frowning as hard as her scrunched-up little face would let her. For a moment Zuko thought he saw his sister in her flashing eyes. Just for a moment. Something in his chest ached.

“Daddy, go away!”

“Kya,” he squared his shoulders put on his most stern voice, “is that the way we speak to people we love?”

Kya dropped her shoulders and rolled her eyes.

“Daddy,” she repeated reluctantly, “ _please_ go away.”

“Fine,” he pushed himself off the ground with a prolonged, theatrical sigh, “if you need me, Mommy and I will be up for a little bit longer. You know where to find me.”

She had turned her away from her father and back to the sea. But as soon her father turned to walk away, she lifted her eyes.

“Wait…”

Zuko smiled to himself and sat back down.

“Alright,” he put his hand on her knee, “what’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” she gave a half-hearted shrug, “I just feel… sad.”

“Someone said something mean to you. Who –“

“No,” she shook her head, “I'm... just… sad.”

“Hmm,” he was sorry, he knew the feeling, “that’s … that’s tough.”

Kya nodded and sighed.

“I know,” Zuko bowed forward slightly to meet his daughter’s face, “sometimes I just get sad too, and scared.”

“Why do _you_ get sad?”

“Well,” he brought his hand to his chin, “lots of reasons.”

He took a breath.

“Sometimes it’s because… Well… sometimes I miss my mother, your grandmother, and… some of my friends live very far away, and… Uncle Iroh lives far away –“

“Like how Uncle Sokka lives far away.”

“Yeah, exactly,” he wrapped his arm around her gave her shoulder a squeeze, “exactly… And, uh, I guess if I’m being honest sometimes being the Fire Lord is… well, it’s scary sometimes.”

“But,” she looked up at him, eyes wide, “but you’re so good at it!”

Zuko pulled Kya in and exhaled a faint laugh.

“That’s very kind Kya.”

A cool breeze swept through the porch rustling the tall palms that flanked the sides of the house and the high grasses that lined the rocky path down to the water. Zuko looked down at his daughter nestled up against his chest. He wondered what she was looking for out on the horizon and up in the moon and stars. He couldn’t promise her answers, but he could promise to stay by her side and help her with the questions.

Zuko pointed towards the sky.

“What do you see up there, Kya?”

“Um,” she furrowed her brow, “the moon… and there’s a little cloud over there moving kinda fast… and stars. There’s probably a million. Lu Ten said that he could count to a million once and I don’t think that’s true because he only got up to a hundred and thirty-two. Which is actually a lot, but I don’t think that’s close to a million at all.”

Zuko smiled. It was good she was talking.

“Would you like one?”

“What?”

“You know,” he pointed at a star that he thought to be a part of the phoenix constellation, “a star? Want one?”

“Daddy,” she snorted and shrugged his arm off, “don’t be silly!”

“I’m serious,” he brought his hand to his heart and gave a terse nod, “very serious.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Close your eyes and hold out your hand,” she did as he said, “now count to three.”

“One…”

Zuko took a breath.

“Two…”

He clasped his palm shut.

“Three…”

He opened his palm and in it sat a little round flame. He tipped it into his daughter’s open hand.

“Okay,” he watched Kya scowl, eyes still closed, feeling the quiet heat in her palm, “look.”

Kya opened her eyes and they grew wide, reflecting a gentle pulsing gleam. She peered first at the glowing thing, then at the sky, then her hand, then met her father’s eyes.

“How…?”

“Watch.”

He took a breath, clasped his palm shut, and when he opened it up, behold, another star.

Her eyes nearly fell out of her head this time.

“Wait, Daddy, _you_ make the stars?!”

Zuko laughed. So that was how she saw him then.

“Something like that.”

He looked into the night sky and tried to imagine how many hours, years, it would take for just one man to fill the sky.

“It’s so small.”

“Yes,” he couldn’t argue with that, “but look how brightly it shines.”

He moved his hand next to hers. Just her hand alone could have fit in the palm of his.

“And look at them together.”

A small smile spread across Kya’s face. She let the little star roll around in her palm, let it dance between her fingers, and leap from fingertip to fingertip.

She watched as her father lifted his hand up to the sky and let his star go. She watched it dissipate into the night and watched the calm wash over his face with the rise and fall of his chest. She looked down at the star in her hand and suddenly felt quite big. Her father had been helping her, teaching her for nearly a year now how to make her flame bigger and stronger, how to control something so wild. She could if she wanted to throw out her arm and spin the star into a burning vortex that would momentarily dim the stars above. But holding something so delicate, something so delicate yet containing so much life, felt better. It felt like her mother gently placing her baby sister in her arms for the first time.

“Can I make a wish?”

“Sure,” her father shrugged, “why not?”

Kya watched the star swirl around in her palms once more, then, as she had watched her father do, she held her hand up to the sky and let the star go, imagining it was going off to find its place in the sky. She smiled and exhaled as the little flame faded into the night. If she wished for something, she wasn’t going to let her father know this time.

Zuko followed his daughter in looking out at the world under the stars, everything asleep but the wind in the trees and the water bringing moonlight to shore.

“Daddy?”

They both looked at each other, and they both heard the faint tread of footsteps down the hall, too heavy and self-assured to be those of a child. Zuko saw the glint in his daughter’s eyes and she must have seen the same in his. There was no one, perhaps except himself, that Kya loved to show off to more.

“Do you think,” he put a steady hand to her back and the other just underneath her cupped hand, “I could try?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh Y'ALL 
> 
> I am ... very weak   
> I know like a GOOD chunk of my fics are just like what if Zuko soft dad (puppy eyes emoji) but like... what if Zuko soft dad???? 
> 
> The fact that he just wants to make Kya smile, like he's totally given up on her going to sleep any time soon so he's like the least I can do is sit here and try to get her to smile again, right? 
> 
> And truly, honestly, the number of times I have listened to Yellow by Coldplay while writing this fic is..... disturbing. BUT IT WORKS!!!!! 
> 
> I just .... sigh... nothing but love in this family okay!! 
> 
> As always, love to hear your thoughts! Thanks for reading and letting me share my sappy sappy works with you all :'^)

**Author's Note:**

> Ha ha ha not me going through A Time writing about comfort as an act of comfort itself. Also not be listening to Yellow by Coldplay on repeat, what is this freshman year of high school? Come on. 
> 
> Anywho, really just love to let Zuko "have feelings" whatever that means. 
> 
> Excited to be back writing about these characters that I love so much! Missed the old fanfiction, missed you too reader :'^)
> 
> Also really excited to share with you the other two stories in this little series! See ya soon!


End file.
